The present invention relates to a device and method for sorting and identifying electrical conductors, more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved method and apparatus for identifying individual wires or circuits from a plurality of wires or circuits extending between two remotely spaced locations.
It is often necessary to identify individual wires or circuits that extend between two locations to match the two ends of the wire to one another. In the computer networking industry, a cable, typically containing four pairs of wires is used for each computer network connection between a distribution frame in a computer distribution location and the computer workstation. The distribution frame is typically called the “patch panel”, and it may contain hundreds, or even thousands of individual network circuits. Factories, ships and aircraft also have many individual wires crowded into tight bundles, each carrying power and signals, between different locations. Although the present invention is primarily directed toward solving a problem of the computer networking industry, the apparatus and method of the present invention has applicability to any system wherein large numbers of wires between spaced locations must be identified. In this application, the term “wire”, unless otherwise stated or shown by the context, will also refer to a complete circuit, such as a Category V (CAT-V) cable used in computer networking systems.
The most commonly used prior art method for identifying the corresponding ends of such wires requires two workers. One worker is stationed at the patch panel, where one end of the wire is terminated, and the other worker is stationed at the remote location to be identified. In this context, “identify” means to determine which of the many wires connected to the patch panel corresponds to the same wire connected to the terminal jack at the remote location. The worker at the remote location, using a tone generating apparatus, applies a test tone to the terminal jack, which enters the wires connected there. Once the tone generator is connected, the worker at the patch panel sequentially scans each of the terminations at the patch panel until the energized conductor is found. The energized conductor, now identified as corresponding to the particular remote location, is then labeled. This process repeated until all of the network wires are identified. This process can take days or even weeks to complete in large network cabling installations.
The difficulty that arises with this prior art method is that this process is quite time consuming and involves a great deal of trial and error. The technician must hold the testing receiver adjacent to each of the cables that are connected to the back of the patch panel. Often this must be done in a small area that does not provide easy service access. In addition, since these areas are generally small, the cables in question are quite close to one another making it more difficult for the technician to differentiate and isolate the cable carrying the tone from all of the other cables. Further, if the cables are heavily shielded or there is a great deal of background noise it can be difficult to identify the tone carrying cable. Finally, this method is also non-permanent, meaning that if additional network circuits are added or if a number of wires are removed from the patch panel and re-terminated the process must be repeated to identify the new circuits.
Other methods that which can rapidly identify a wire connection location use permanently connected or built-in devices that maintain a matrix of pre-identified wires in a random-access memory chip that is installed in the patch panel device itself. Such devices however, are expensive to manufacture, and require the design and installation of a great deal of circuitry within the patch panel itself. In any case, what is needed is a permanently installed method for identifying wires that is inexpensive, fast, and simple to use.